Thus saith the Lord: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for on these things I delight." Jeremiah 9:23-24

"Oh to Grace how great a debtordaily I'm constrained to be.Let thy goodness, like a fetterbind my wandering heart to Thee!"

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

The Windsor Baptist Verse of the Week

The Lord has blessed me SO MUCH in these last 3-4 weeks. I have found a church that has been ABSOLUTELY the biggest blessing. I'm serious, it is a HUGE testiment to the Lord and his faithfulness. The story behind finding it and the relationships that have resulted is something that I have been dying to write about, but just haven't gotten the chance to. Lord willing I will do that soon. But each week we have a verse that we deal with, usually from the sermon that week, and we memorize/meditate on it all week long. Well this weeks, its a great one that I want to share. I am so grateful to go to a church that is about teaching truth straight out of the Scriptures and that tries to get you to examine yourself each week and not a place where you just show up and get your ears tickled. This verse is from Jeremiah 12, and well, you won't find it to be your favorite verse in the Bible...probably not even your top 25...

Jer 12:5 "If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, in which you trusted, they wearied you, then how will you do in the jungle of the Jordan?"

The background of this verse is that Jeremiah, who is enduring one trial after another, has just gotten done kind of complaining to the Lord about the wicked people in the nation and how they seem to be the happy ones. He is pretty frustrated and more or less just asks the Lord to hurry and bring judgment and kill them. Well, verse 5 was the Lord's response to Him. I know that when I am frustrated and weary, which is what Jeremiah was in this chapter, the last thing I want to hear anyone, let alone the Lord say is: You think this is bad? This is only the beginning. If you can't deal with this, how will you ever be able to handle things when I crank it up a notch? When we were discussing this in church, what we found was that the majority of women don't want answers like this when they are upset. They want to be confirmed and encouraged. They want their husband's embrace of consolement; they don't really want answers. Haha, that is so true. It takes men a while to figure that out. But even talking about humans in general, we like sympathy, but that's not always what we NEED to hear. In this case God wasn't consoling Jeremiah. Keep in mind that Jeremiah was a VERY faithful man. He was the lone light of hope shining in this nation, and for the most part he had been very obedient to the Lord. He was preaching God's law and casting down the idol's of this nation. So of course he was hated amongst men, but was faithful in God's eyes.

But God takes the opportunity to answer Jeremiah's complaint by admonishing him. He even adds in the little part "in which you have trusted" almost scolding him for still placing his trust in the things of that nation and of those men (while Jeremiah had remained faithful, he still was letting the actions of the wicked get to him). But Jeremiah was human...and he was capable of losing sight of the Sovereign plans of the Lord, just like all of us. And the all-knowing God knew that then, and He knows it now with us. So next time you are crying out to the Lord and wondering exactly what it is He is doing in your life...remember this verse. Theres plenty of room for encouragement after He gets you back on the right track of thinking....which is God is in control and we must remember we are a tool on His toolbelt, not the other way around.

Jeremiah chapter 12 is a great chapter....take a look at it and get the context in which God was saying this in its entirety.

About Me

This blog was made for one reason: to bring glory to the Kingdom of God. In a world where the truth has been exchanged for a lie, I'm here to contend for Biblical truth and to get the word out about the one true Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing fancy, just a way to share beliefs on Biblical Christianity and to provide a sound source for people out there hungry for the truth, not just another vain and empty worldview.

In order for us to understand the Good News of the Gospel we must first understand the bad news: we are born separated from God and dead in our trespasses of sin. Anyone who has broken just ONE of God's laws is guilty and deserving of an eternal death. There is nothing that we can do to "help ourselves" out of this, it must take an act of God. It is Christ alone who rescues a sinner's heart and transforms it into a new one that desire's to know God, therefore it is Christ alone who gets the glory. This work of salvation is a gift from the Lord and comes by humbling yourself before Him and repenting of your sins and believing on Christ's substitution death on the cross. Those receiving God's free gift of grace are forgiven of their sins and are chosen to live a life here on earth as well as for all eternity with the Lord. WHAT GREAT NEWS! Unfortunatly many professing Christian's have taken on the name and have forgotten to "count the cost" of what it means to be a true follower of Christ. It is important that we search the scriptures to uncover the true Gospel so we can learn about the life of self-denial that we have been called to live.

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"A true recognition of God's sovereignty humbles as nothing else does or can humble, and brings the heart into lowly submission before God, causing us to relinquish our own self-will and making us delight in the perception and performance of the Divine will."-A.W. Pink

"We must be clothed with humility; for the proud in spirit are those that cannot bear to be trampled upon, but grow outrageous, and fret themselves, when they are hardly bestead. That will break a proud man's heart, which will not break a humble man's sleep. Mortify pride, therefore, and a lowly spirit will easily be reconciled to a low condition."
-Matthew Henry